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ACT Letter to Montgomery County Council
Park and Planning Budget Cuts - Comments from Action Committee for Transit

April 11, 2011

Valerie Ervin, President
Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD

Dear Council President Ervin and Members of the County Council:

The Action Committee for Transit (ACT) opposes cuts to the Park and Planning Commission budget. Our award-winning Planning Commission has so much on its plate --- the rewrite of our decades-old zoning code, numerous master plans needing revision, important new developments in the pipeline such as White Flint and incorporating emerging plans for a countywide rapid transit system. We will be thwarting these projects if the county, again, makes deep cuts to the Planning Commission. If we ever hope to rebuild the county's revenue base, we must attract businesses by providing places to work and live convenient to transit. An acre of mixed-use development will provide more revenue than an acre of parking spaces. TOD will conserve tax dollars by consolidating infrastructure and reducing demand for expensive highway widening and interchange projects. To orchestrate these projects, however, we need all the remaining members of our expert planning staff.

Last year, the Planning Commission lost 31 staffers in one day and had their positions abolished. This year, if cuts are approved, they will lose another 30 employees, and the Department will be 40% smaller than it was two years ago. This would occur at a time when the number of development applications is increasing. The Executive's proposed cuts would result in the inability to proceed with many Master Plans, including the plans for Bus Rapid Transit and the Purple Line.

The Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission (MNCPPC) is, at present, non-partisan and independent of the Executive branch, and thus less susceptible to political whims and special interests. These proposals to:

are nothing less than an attempt to make the Planning Commission a tool of Executive politics.

The County Government, not the Planning Commission, holds the title to roughly one third of our parkland. By proposing to transfer park user activities over to the Executive Branch, and by limiting MNCPPC's authority only to the land that is titled to MNCPPC, the Executive Branch could open the land to other uses such as housing, roadways, schools.

Sincerely,

Tina Slater, President
Action Committee for Transit
slater.tina@gmail.com
301-585-5038